Angles

Sometimes it's all about the angle.

Fireworks

My first attempt at shooting fireworks. I went to a fair a few weeks ago and what do you know, they had fireworks. I had my small tripod but there wasn't really a place to set it up in the middle of the carnival area so I decided to wing it. I'll try again sometime using a tripod. And there's some cool carnival shots to come.

Obsessed

Seems I'm just a little obsessed with taking photos of the lovely flowers in the cool bottles with buddha. It's always so zen that I just can't help myself.

Summer

Some Things I've Been Up To

So a few weeks ago I wrote that I had lots to share and here is some of that. This Spring I had quite a few photo shoots. And I decided June was going to be my comeback to my blog. I am determined to get more posts up this month than I have any other month this year. Now that things have started to become more normal:)

Here are photos from two shoots. I've been so lucky to photograph this little fella since he was 2 weeks old! There is a very cool series that I need to post on here which I will soon.













































And then this lovely little lady was just 2 weeks old when I first met her. Check out that thick, dark hair!







































More stuff on the way!

A Special Birthday Weekend

Yesterday was my birthday. 46! Damn. I'm one of those people that loves my birthday and celebrating it. It's my special day so why the hell not. I don't work on my birthday. I think the last time I did was 2001. As long as I can remember I have tried to take off several days surrounding my birthday or perhaps an entire week. This year, since my birthday was on a Sunday, I figured a 3 day weekend would be sufficient. Anyway, this weekend marked two years since Lucy Poo joined our family. And while I don't have a photo tribute to her, I do have this http://www.youtube.com/user/pyle2atearthlink#p/u/6/ZeZZClsY6W8. This was one of my birthday presents from Shawn. I could watch this all day. My silly kitties. And we don't actually have 4 kitties now, 2 of them have passed away. We are actually thinking about getting a new kitty to join our family.

And one of my other presents from Shawn was a big, standing hug. We've certainly shared some hugs since he's been home from the hospital, but it's hard to get good hug while he's sitting in the wheelchair. So yesterday, we helped him to stand up with no walker or bars or anything. Then while I helped to support him just a little we got to share our first, standing hug in over 5 months. This was one of the best birthday presents ever. Just behind him being here this year to celebrate with me, because he might not have been.

Shawn also isn't able to make it out of the house alone yet, so he had some challenges to surprise me for my birthday but there's obviously no challenge too great for him. While I ran out to the store he set all of this up:














































Balloons, cool glass bottles, a new yoga mat and some kick ass wrist bands. Thanks to ebay and his mom, he pulled all of this off. And he set this up by himself. AND ... he made me a card with an awesome little poem. It was truly one of the best birthdays ever. And no birthday would be complete without cupcakes!

Offerings

Jasmine blossoms at the feet of Kuan Yin. The blossoms drop from the jasmine towards the middle of the day, so there were a these beautiful little flowers laying on the deck. Their scent and beauty warranted something more than a trash can. And Kuan Yin is the Buddhist Bodhisattva of Compassion. Or at least that's one description. I think she also might be a Chinese goddess. Either way it just seems so appropriate to lay these as an offering to her.